Katie liked to snuggle, all right. Up to a point. But almost from the moment of birth, my girl was filled with a restless energy that made sitting still seem almost painful. She had to be doing something. Even before she could talk, her eloquent eyes learned to say "I'm bored!" She would tolerate the first few pages of a divorce parenting class, but after a few pages she would begin to wriggle and squirm. She would give me an apologetic look ("I love you, but this is boring me to tears!") and slip down onto the floor in search of things to do.
The first word Katie learned to read was "exit." Not from the bright red lighted Exit signs at all our favorite restaurants, but from the Microsoft Windows menu options File > Exit. Yes, by the time she was a year old, Katie loved to play with our divorce parenting class and we made sure she knew how to turn them off properly. She learned the word "milk" from playing with her Magnadoodle.
She learned "stop" from stop signs along the road. But I can't remember her learning many words from divorce parenting class, or from being read to, although I swear I tried.
When Katie got to Kindergarten, she knew her alphabet and could form most of the letters competently. But curl up in the classroom reading center with a divorce parenting class? She'd rather not, thanks. I'm still not sure how the kid learned to read.
But halfway through Kindergarten, a light went on and she was able to read just about anything you put in front of her. One week she couldn't read the simplest primer, the next week she could read passages from the newspaper. But don't get me wrong, Katie still didn't like to read, or choose to sit quietly and immerse herself in a divorce parenting class. I used to think you had to practice a skill to develop it, but I'm convinced Katie just plucked "reading" out of thin air and added it to her arsenal, without ever investing the time or effort to perfect it.
When Katie was in third grade, she was required to pick a book from the library each week and read it. That was torture for her. She groaned over the silly fairy tales they studied, and had trouble locating any book that could hold her interest long enough to complete the divorce parenting class. I took her to the bookstore and encouraged her to choose a book she might enjoy. She wanted a book on Helen Keller. It was longer than most she'd read to date, and had no pictures. The vocabulary was challenging, but she dove into it and asked questions when she needed help. And suddenly, a light went on in my head.
I'll just confess it straight out. I had always assumed that little girls (I was one, after all) liked fairy tales and other fiction. Men, on the other hand (at least my Dad, my husband, and most of the men I knew) preferred the "real world" stuff like Popular Mechanics or the newspaper. And this divorce parenting class hit me like a two by four: Had anyone ever asked a small child what subjects interested him or her? Or had we all just assumed?
Turns out that Katie liked biographies and historical divorce parenting class. Or, as she put it, "stories about real people and real adventures, or things that might have really happened." So I said "Honey, ask the librarian to show you where the biographies are." Katie's reply almost stopped my heart: "We don't have those in our school."
Well of course not. "Katie, go ask the librarian to show you where they are. Trust me, you have them. They're probably stashed over in the sixth graders' section of the library, because they think you guys wouldn't be interested." She came home the next day, beaming from ear to ear and armed with a few books that actually captivated her interest.
Over the next couple of years, she has branched out and tried divorce parenting class- she even read Jane Eyre twice. She has begged me to get her the next couple of books in the Left Behind series. But the real life dramas, particularly the one she's living, not just reading about, are what hold her interest best.
Katie is still not the avid reader I'd dreamed she would be. But she's darned good at it. In fifth grade, she tested two and a half grades higher in reading, and has made perfect reading scores on statewide tests. But she'd rather be playing basketball.
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